Integrating proxmox VE with podman/docker /Customizing web GUI

[Dmeerev]

So, I ran into a very annoying problem, in the form of the fact that all the interaction of docker containers takes place through lxc+ external management.
I'd need to:
1. Make a folder system on the panel with virtual machines/containers so that you can conveniently group by users, type, purpose, importance, etc (advanced sort for qol)
2. I want to integrate docker/podman with a proxmox guy, as it's very annoying to constantly climb back and forth, I want everything to be in one place.
I need to think of docker/podman containers as containers in the left pane, have an attachment to them by clicking a button, as in lxc, access to parameters, etc.
How can I customize the web gui to add a new container type, its settings, etc
Also does Proxmox have some kind of plugin system to quickly integrate docker/podman into a Proхmox ve based system?

The reason why it annoys me is because there is a lot of software for docker/podman containers (but lxc image not provided) , running them, one command.
Docker in lxc is an overkill, moreover, it does not have any management integration with Proxmox.
Putting software in LXC containers directly is a pain, you need to get involved with settings, bug googling, configuration, installation. This is all very long, and can take up to 6-7 hours for 1 container of software.
In my opinion, it sounds more reasonable to raise 1 docker/podman engine on the host, and then manage from the guy, like lxc. That would be so convenient!

 

[fabian]

I am afraid you massively underestimate the amount of changes required for such an integration - the current LXC-specific backend alone is over 10k lines of perl code, and that is not counting things in other repositories like various helpers, the network setup, or the UI..

 

[LnxBil]

Proxmox VE is an IaaS platform and to manage your podman/docker containers, you would need a CaaS platform like Rancher, K8S and such runs in KVM/Qemu VMs, not LX(C) containers. Every production setup I've ever seen follows this separation. PVE is great for HA in a cluster with online migration and failover and inside of those VMs, you have your single node Docker, swarm, k8s ...

 

[m91]

Don't worry about the other comments, you are right.

If they integrated docker or podman into the GUI, proxmox would get a HUGE jump in popularity (and marketshare).

I don't know of the container workflows people use with LXC containers, but creating containers from a Dockerfile is lots simpler. The layers make iteratively building an image less of a chore, and the Dockerfile itself is a recipe you can share.

With proxmox containers I spend more of my time being the sysadmin of my containers.

What's interesting is that you can create an LXC container from a docker image using lxc-create:

lxc-create <options> -t oci -- --url docker://ubuntu:latest

oci means use the template in /usr/share/lxc/templates/lxc-oci which takes the --url argument

I haven't tried it. Maybe they have special sauce in their images to work with proxmox.

If it works, I wonder why they can't add URL to their container setup menus. It might be a small change with a big impact.

 

[LnxBil]

If they integrated docker or podman into the GUI, proxmox would get a HUGE jump in popularity (and marketshare).

In the DIY and self-host market, sure. Those are almost exclusively not paying customers.

Container orchestration in an enterprise context does not work like this and there is already software that solves orchestration, which uses directly KVM/QEMU VMs for years and is already working with PVE. No market share to gain here from Proxmox and they see it exactly this way, also already pointed out on numerous occasions by Proxmox itself.